Who Better Than the "Leading Learner"?

by Laura R. Lipsett, Westerville City Schools, Westerville, Ohio

Educators Know

"U.S. students are not keeping pace with current literacy demands."
―Darwin & Fleischman (2005)

"Most adolescents are able to carry out basic reading tasks, but only 40 percent can read well enough to comfortably manage standard high school texts."
―National Center for Education Statistics (2003)

"Nearly 50 percent of all U.S. students fail to demonstrate analytical reasoning expected of them in college."
―National Data Release (2005)

Secondary educators know that adolescent literacy is a problem. They know that many of their students aren't able to use reading and writing effectively to learn subject matter. They know that many students come to high school seriously deficient in literacy abilities and will have difficulty learning any subject if they're unable to get more than basic information from texts and are unable to convey information skillfully. Educators also know that many students will leave high school disengaged and unprepared to meet the demands of post-secondary education as well as the world of work, and many will fail to participate effectively in their community and make informed choices. Obviously, the struggle for secondary educators is not in recognizing that there is a problem; the struggle is in determining what to do about it. Most are overwhelmed at the task of identifying and applying research-based literacy strategies in their content-area classrooms (Bintz, 1997; Buehl, 1998; Kamil, 2003; Neuman & Rao, 2004).

Literacy Beliefs

"They surf the web―these students can read. They're just lazy. That's why they won't read for class and do poorly on proficiency exams."
―A teacher

"The failure to pass our district's levy means that we won't be able to hire a reading teacher. These kids need someone to teach them how to read their textbooks."
―A teacher

The traditional belief that literacy consists of skills learned in elementary school causes many educators to place blame for adolescents' literacy struggles on their early teachers. However, this belief fails to recognize the developmental nature of literacy. Literacy demands change as students transition through the grade levels. Academic texts grow increasingly complex. Adolescents need ongoing support for learning how to read these academic texts while learning how to use the academic content. Yet many middle and high school teachers maintain the belief that literacy is something that English language arts teachers are supposed to teach or something that only a reading specialist can attend.

Further, the limited perception of literacy as "being able to read" or decode print texts fails to recognize the empowerment that advanced literacy skills can provide for all students. Literacy not only comprises the skill of reading but also includes other skill forms, such as writing, speaking, listening, viewing, and thinking about both print and nonprint texts. Literacy is also about meaning making and engagements critical to comprehension. Adolescents need literacy skills that allow them to read for information, summarize and extend the learning to personal situations in and outside the classroom, and make connections to other texts and to the world. Meaning making and engagement with texts are integral to comprehension. In light of this, who better than the leading content expert in the classroom to teach students the necessary tools needed to read, think, and act like a historian, a scientist, a mathematician, etc.?

Literacy Strategies

"My students refuse to read, so I don't encourage 'self-defeat.' I rarely have them read the textbook. They can get the main ideas without having to read."
―A teacher

"I have 50 minutes of class time and much curriculum to cover. How am I going to have time to 'teach reading' plus social studies content?"
―A teacher

Effective literacy involves engaging with and creating a range of texts; building on languages, experiences, cultures, and other assets of students; and communicating and expressing understanding in multiple ways both independently and with others (Neuman & Rao, 2004). These broader purposes dictate that literacy is the province of all content-area teachers. Whereas some students may benefit from extra instruction provided by a reading specialist, most will benefit more from literacy instruction that is embedded and taught simultaneously with content-area information. Teaching content-area literacy isn't another add-on. Educators can't expect "prime rib" with a "hamburger mentality."

All teach literacy: It's a matter of whether or not the instructional strategies they are using help students actively engage in and reflect on their own learning and develop the necessary skills that help them acquire academic content. Some instructional strategies are more effective than others. However, all need to help students develop learning strategies that allow them to access and utilize:

• Knowledge of a specialized vocabulary;
• A wide range of background knowledge;
• Use of study and memory techniques;
• Strategies for reading expository rather than narrative texts;
• A high level of monitoring for understanding;
• The ability to hold multiple concepts in memory while judging for importance;
• Knowledge of sources and the reliability of those sources; and
• The ability to overcome a lack of interest in reading and writing to learn. (Allen, 2004)

Typical Students

"I do my homework every night. I can read it, but I don't get it."
―A student

"I raise my hand long enough just so that the teacher thinks that I read my assignment. But I didn't read it. I hate to read. It's boring."
―A student

"I took notes while I read, but I still don't get what I was supposed to learn from the chapter. I failed the quiz that was supposed to be on the main ideas."
―A student

Struggling learners exhibit a range of difficulties. In addition to lacking strategies, many believe that past failures dictate the improbability of future successes. Aliteracy is often an outcome: Students can read but choose not to read or learn school subjects (Alvermann, 2001, 2003). Many students are engaged in complex reading and writing activities around computer games and Internet activities, such as maintaining personal web pages or blogs. However, they don't exhibit such behavior in classrooms for various reasons. Many fail to see personal relevancy and experience other disconnections. For some it's the instructional methods that zap their motivation to participate in academic literacy (Alvermann, 2001, 2003; Lee, 2004). Without the necessary supports and interventions, many will fail to develop the advanced literacy skills needed for graduation and life beyond high school:

Valerie, eighth grader. Valerie reads lots of fiction outside class; however, she struggles with textbooks. She tells her social studies teacher that she has read the assigned chapter on the Constitutional Convention but doesn't remember what she read. She cannot even describe the chapter's topic. She knows words in bold are important but cannot say how these could help her read the chapter.

Jesse, ninth grader. Jesse speaks primarily Spanish at home. Though he is fluent in spoken English, he struggles with reading and writing. He likes sports but does not do well in most classes and feels school has little to offer him. He is behind in his credits and gets mostly D's in his classes.

Nicole, ninth grader. Nicole likes school―that is, being with her friends. She thinks her classes are boring and is sure she will never use the "stuff," especially math. She likes her teachers but wants more fun activities. She earns mainly C's.

Sammy, tenth grader. Sammy reads Popular Science and surfs websites such as those of the CIA and NASA. He shares unusual science facts with students and teachers. He says he doesn't like to read, especially for English class, as most of what he reads is boring. When he does read, he loses interest and cannot remember what he read. He also complains about reading his science textbook, as he doesn't remember what he reads. He is grateful that his science teacher rarely requires the class read the textbook and engages them mostly in oral presentations. He barely passed science on the proficiency test.

David, eleventh grader. David fails to do homework when reading is assigned. He has a B average in math but struggles to earn C's and D's in other courses. He often pretends to "get it" in class discussions even though he hasn't read the reading materials. When teachers ask questions related to reading, he raises his hand, though not long enough for teachers to call on him. Last year he passed the Ohio Graduation Test (OGT). He now believes he can take it easy for his last two years in high school. He plans to attend college but is unsure where.

Kendra, eleventh grader. Kendra historically is a B and A student. In the past she has enrolled in some honors and advanced placement (AP) courses. She is quiet and reserved in the classroom. She is newly enrolled in the International Baccalaureate (IB) program. Her favorite subjects in the past have been AP English and American history. However, she is struggling with IB history, which also covers world politics―in particular, the reading of Henry Kissinger's Diplomacy.

Everyone Needs to Teach Literacy

"A dual attention to supportive school environments and to high-quality reading and writing instruction will yield better results."
―Biancarosa (2005)

Teaching students to approach a text in a thoughtful and deliberate manner even before they start to read helps them build the patience and stamina required to understand the content. In this age of 50-minute class periods and "curriculum to cover before tests," many teachers forgo the preparation stage. For example, a social studies teacher before assigning required reading, such as Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, should make certain that students have sufficient background knowledge about the subject matter before they begin to read. Instead of assigning students to "read the book, do the questions, and discuss these in class the next day," the teacher might show students how to push their involvement toward active engagements with the text that yield authentic questions and meaningful connections. If so, students are better able to maintain their focus and interest. It is too often considered a trade-off. However, failure to provide needed literacy supports in lieu of content coverage means students will likely fail at deeper learning engagements and understandings. They will lose interest and will probably not retain what they're learning. Either reteaching or forging ahead will take place. The former takes additional time that could be used for continued coverage, and the latter may mean students fail to develop fully as literacy learners in the content area being studied.

Final Remarks

To teach students well and equitably, literacy development must be every teacher's responsibility. To encourage engagement and motivation, teachers need to capitalize on students' linguistic, cultural, and community assets to create the bridge between what students know and what they are expected to master (Alvermann, 2001, 2003). A recent issue of Educational Leadership (December 2005) presented the quandary of teaching the "DIG" (digital instant gratification) generation in schools that are not keeping up with technology and the types of literacy that students engage outside the classroom. When teachers do use technology, it's often a lower-skills approach, much like using the computer as a typewriter.

Educators have to understand the underlying reasons for needed change and then figure out how to do so. In schools where instructional change has taken place for the better of students' learning, "clinical approaches" have often been utilized (Hinds, 2002). Much like health practitioners, teachers come together to discuss how best to teach students. As a collaborative they share, deconstruct, and apply new instructional methods and strategies, collect and examine learning data to measure effectiveness, and continue to learn from their students "how best to help them learn." Administrators support these learning communities by committing resources and time for professional development that allow teachers to engage as team members in conversations and in workshop environments centered on student learning (Taylor & Collins, 2003). They provide feedback and interchanges that open their classrooms to other "clinicians" who became collaborative problem solvers.

Many teachers are already learning how to use and teach a range of literacy approaches in their content areas. After enrolling in Ohio's State Institute for Reading Instruction: Adolescent Literacy: Reading to Learn Across the Curriculum (2005-2006 institute funded and developed by the Ohio Department of Education, Office of Reading Improvement), one high school science teacher in my district said that she has tried several of Janet Allen's (2004) strategies. Recently, this same science teacher tried Cris Tovani's (2005) version of text highlighting to discover how well her honors students might identify the main points of a chapter they were to read in their chemistry texts. She was startled to discover that they were all over the place. "These are honors students," she reiterated, "not 'struggling' students."

Tovani (2005) suggests that teachers themselves become aware of the strategies they use to read difficult content and also become aware of how they respond in multiple ways to a variety of texts in the workplace and in their own lives. As teacher learn more about their own styles of approaching unfamiliar texts, they add to the techniques they can draw on when students have trouble. Teachers who learn about themselves as learners are more likely to use other methods than ones they are most comfortable with when students don't get the way the content was pitched. No structural change in any school can be successful unless the educators leading the efforts are continually improving their own capacity to teach every student well and equitably. If not the "leading learner," then who will teach students the power of literacy to unlock and use academic texts to empower them in their lives not only in but outside of school?

References

Allen, J. (2004). Tools for teaching content literacy. Portland, ME: Stenhouse.

Alvermann, D. E. (2001). Executives literacy instruction for adolescents. Executive summary and paper commissioned by the National Reading Conference. Retrieved December 13, 2005, from http://nrconline.org/publications/alverwhite2.pdf.

Alvermann, D. E. (2003). Seeing themselves as capable and engaged readers: Adolescents and re/mediated instruction. A paper commissioned by North Central Regional Education Laboratory. Retrieved December 13, 2005, from http://www.learningpt.org.

Biancarosa, G. (2005). After third grade. Educational Leadership, 63(2), 16-22.

Bintz, W. P. (1997). Exploring reading nightmares of middle and secondary school teachers. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 41(1), 12-26.

Buehl, D. (1998). Integrating the "R" word into the high school curriculum: Developing reading programs for adolescent learners. NASSP Bulletin, 82(600), 57-66.

Darwin, M., & Fleischman, S. (2005). Fostering adolescent literacy. Educational Leadership, 62(7), 85-87.

Hinds, M. D. (2002). Teaching as a clinical profession: A new challenge for education. A report to the Carnegie Corporation of New York. New York: Carnegie Corporation.

Kamil, M. (2003). Adolescents and literacy: Reading for the 21st century. New York: Alliance for Excellent Education.

Learning in the digital age [Issue]. (2005, December). Educational Leadership, 63(4).

Lee, C. D. (2004). Literacy in the academic disciplines and the needs of adolescent struggling readers. Voices in Urban Education, 3, 14-25.

National Center for Education Statistics. (2003). The nation's report card: Reading 2002. Washington, DC: Author.

National Data Release (2005, August). ACT Newsroom. Retrieved November 30, 2005, from http://www.act.org/news/releases/2005/8-17-05.html.

Neuman, M., & Rao, S. (2004). Adolescent literacy: Beyond English class, beyond decoding text. Voices in Urban Education, 3, 6-13.

Taylor, R., & Collins, V. D. (2003). Literacy leadership for grades 5-12. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Tovani, C. (2005). The power of purposeful reading. Educational Leadership, 63 (2), 48-51.

Laura R. Lipsett is the secondary curriculum and instruction coordinator for Westerville City Schools, Westerville, Ohio. She works with grades 6-12 teachers and principals. Her work focuses on adolescent literacy, instructional improvement, and ways to close achievement gaps. Prior to this, she was an administrator for the Office of Reading Improvement, Ohio Department of Education; a college professor for three universities; and a grades 7-12 teacher.

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